A short life of the author
Mahatma Gandhi was the most consequential political figure of the twentieth century — a man who led India to independence from the British Empire through a method of nonviolent resistance that he invented, that he tested over four decades of political struggle, and that he articulated in a body of writing so vast (the collected works run to one hundred volumes) and so intimately connected to action that his life and his texts are inseparable. He was not a literary figure in the conventional sense — his prose was functional rather than polished, his arguments moral rather than aesthetic — but his writings, particularly Hind Swaraj (1909) and An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927–1929), are among the most influential political texts of the modern era, works that changed the way human beings think about power, resistance, and the relationship between means and ends.
South Africa
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat, into a Bania (merchant caste) family. His father was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar; his mother was deeply devout. He studied law at the Inner Temple in London and in 1893 traveled to South Africa to work as a lawyer, beginning a twenty-one-year residence that would transform him from a shy, conventional young lawyer into the most innovative political thinker and organiser of the twentieth century.
In South Africa, Gandhi developed the theory and practice of satyagraha — a term he coined, meaning “truth-force” or “soul-force” — the method of nonviolent resistance that would become his most important contribution to political thought. Satyagraha was not passive resistance; it was active, disciplined, and confrontational, designed to expose the moral bankruptcy of unjust laws by forcing the authorities to choose between abandoning the laws and using violence against peaceful resisters.
Hind Swaraj
Hind Swaraj, or Indian Home Rule (1909) was Gandhi’s most radical and most systematic work of political philosophy — a short book, written in Gujarati in the form of a dialogue, that argued not merely for Indian independence from Britain but for a wholesale rejection of Western industrial civilisation. Gandhi contended that modern civilisation — with its railways, factories, hospitals, lawyers, and parliaments — was itself a form of enslavement, and that true swaraj (self-rule) required not the replacement of British rulers with Indian ones but the transformation of Indian society along the lines of village self-sufficiency, handicraft production, and moral self-discipline.
The argument was considered utopian even by Gandhi’s own followers, and he himself moderated aspects of it in practice. But Hind Swaraj remained his touchstone — the book he returned to throughout his life as the most complete expression of his political vision.
An Autobiography
An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (serialised 1925–1929, published in book form 1927–1929) was Gandhi’s most widely read work — a candid, unsparing account of his life from childhood through his South African years, written in a plain, direct style that reflected his conviction that truth required simplicity. The book’s subtitle was the key: Gandhi understood his life as a series of “experiments” in truth — experiments in diet, in celibacy, in nonviolence, in communal living — that were conducted with the same rigour and willingness to accept failure that a scientist brings to laboratory work.
The autobiography was remarkable for its honesty. Gandhi wrote frankly about his early sexual desires, his youthful experiments with meat-eating and smoking (transgressions in his Vaishnavite household), his failures as a father, and the painful evolution of his ideas. The book established the model of the political autobiography as a form of public self-examination.
The Collected Works
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 volumes, published by the Government of India, 1958–1994) is one of the largest collections of a single individual’s writings ever published. It includes letters, speeches, articles, interviews, and miscellaneous writings spanning fifty years of public life. The sheer volume testifies to Gandhi’s belief that political action required constant explanation, that every decision must be justified in public, and that the leader of a mass movement must maintain an ongoing dialogue with his followers.
Legacy and Influence
Gandhi’s method of nonviolent resistance was adopted by Martin Luther King Jr. in the American civil rights movement, by Nelson Mandela (in the early phase) in the South African anti-apartheid struggle, by Cesar Chavez in the American farmworkers’ movement, and by countless other movements for social justice around the world. His assassination in 1948 by a Hindu nationalist made him a martyr for the secular, pluralist vision of India that he had championed.
Collecting Gandhi
An Autobiography (Navajivan Press, Ahmedabad, 1927–1929, 2 volumes in Gujarati; first English edition, 1940) is the primary collecting target. Hind Swaraj (1909, first Gujarati edition; Phoenix, Natal; English translation 1910) is extremely scarce and historically important. The Collected Works (Publications Division, Government of India, 1958–1994) is collected as a complete set. Letters and documents signed by Gandhi are highly sought; his handwriting is distinctive and authenticated material commands substantial prices.